I don't directly reply to Monk's statement, as I know the strength of the people that are here, and am quite positive there is no way they can sense Raven.
"Great, I'd like to meet them right away."
Then, I say goodbye to Lith, sending him a mental wave of telepathy, linking him with another one of my doubles and Bri thousands of kilometers away in a three-way channel to continue discussing the business idea we came up with on my way over.
He turns away with a smile while I follow Monk into his temple without commenting on the fact that whoever is here knows of Raven, and was expecting my arrival as well.
As we walk into the black stone hallway, I feel the familiar sensation of my system and access to mana-based skills waver in and out of use. However, unlike the many times in the past when, once I got far enough inside, my system would go completely dark, the divine energy tethering to my being sets up a natural barrier between myself and the stone I walk on.
I can feel it is not purely a sensory manifestation either, as Monk's attributes are all greyed out in my senses because he's touching the stone.
Raven, who walks behind me completely in stealth mode, is also still connected to the system.
It is a mystery to me if this is because of my purple barrier, my true core's strength to overpower the stone, some mutation in my abilities, or something completely different.
The only thing that is at the forefront of my mind escapes my lips while Monk presses his hand against the closed entrance door at the end of the hall.
"Who exactly is it that I'm meeting...?"
As the door opens after it blinks bright white with Qi, and Monk leads us down the stairs into the main entrance hall of the temple, he responds.
"Our founder has returned. The Saint. The one closest to the truth of the Originators, he who taught us the ancient Qi manipulation techniques."
I raise an eyebrow at his words and reply back as we walk through the mildly crowded dining hall.
"Yes, I heard your leader was healed by the visitor as well... but who is he?"
Monk smiles as we turn a corner and begin walking down a familiar hall lined with doorways of training rooms, where he awakened my Qi and where I trained many long hours with him, Abby, and Maria during the time Valor City was still under the control of the Dark One.
"Yes, he was healed. But my master is not the founder; he is only the local master of this temple. It is quite an honor to see him in the flesh. Today was my first time seeing him. Many thought he was just another myth to keep us hopeful for the future, just like the Originators themselves; but I always had faith, and he is real..."
Now my curiosity grows even stronger.
Whoever these divine core individuals are, they are connected to this temple, and their appearance here and now is surely correlated with the appearance of the black tower and the abyss retracting.
However, the last key piece of information isn't quite making sense. It's the mention of Raven's name...
We walk further down the hall, and my perception of the three gravity wells gets closer, yet it's still incredibly dampened by all of the dead space of the black walls, ceilings, and floors around me.
Monk finally stops in front of a door, sends a pulse of Qi into it to let it click open, then steps back and motions for me to walk through.
I walk inside, and the training room looks exactly like any other.
The large portion of open sparring space is empty, and the air is dense with Qi.
However, to my left, in the area full of weapons, crates of materials, and a table to sit at in the resting area, I see an old man sitting behind it and two younger warriors at opposite ends sitting by his sides.
Their bodies are completely covered in extremely dense white barriers of Qi, and from deep within, I sense the faint glow of divine light seeping out from both of them, but not enough to emit a powerful aura on their surroundings.
The old man's gaze locks with mine as I enter the room and the door behind me shuts.
We don't say any words to each other for a few seconds, and I send out more and more pulses of perception at him to try and figure out what I'm looking at.
The longer I stare, the less it makes sense.
If my eyes weren't looking at the three men before me, I wouldn't have believed they were here.
My system interface doesn't even pick up levels or any greyed-out readings at all, it's like they're unawakened... without a drop of mana in their bodies.
Yet, the deeper I look into their beings, the odder it gets. They don't even seem to have bodies at all. Every fiber of their flesh and blood comes back to my mental readings as pure Qi, tethered with Divine Energy floating out from their cores.
It's similar to the technique that I've watched Monk and his master perform before; however, this is no greater form or system ability animating in front of me—it seems to be their actual bodies... or more like, lack of bodies...
I stop my slow walk toward them once I'm just a few meters in front of the table and nod with my arms crossed.
"I hear you were already expecting me, so... there's no need for a subtle introduction. Who are you and why are you here?"
The old man doesn't move his gaze from mine. However, the two orange-cored men look me up and down curiously with an air of innocence around them.
He replies, and his tone is extremely soft, higher-pitched, and calming; not exactly what I expected to hear.
"My people refer to me as The Saint, but that is merely a title, as your people call you The Flame Emperor."
He pauses, and finally takes his gaze away from mine and looks around the room.
"Is she here? Raven. I watched your battle very closely; it was quite a magnificent exchange."
My eyes widen, but the old man continues to speak.
"Even if she hasn't made it here today, I'm glad she was able to fight again. I haven't seen her be so free-spirited in battle since the day she joined the Order..."
He smiles and looks up at the ceiling as if he's remembering something.
"I left the public eye many years ago, but it seemed like the light of hope was already beaten out of her. I'm glad someone relit that flame, allowing her to take a new path, and just as the throne showed itself again. Great timing indeed."
I open my mouth to speak and raise a finger, but no words come out.
He's just confirmed so many of my suspicions in less than a minute that there are hardly any more questions to ask...
After a pause, I'm finally about to speak, but to my surprise, Raven materializes out of thin air beside me and beats me to it.
"It's you... The Order member that went dark just a couple of years after I joined.... How did you know I was here?"
The moment she appears, an immense wave of yellow threads fills the room, and begins tearing through the thick Qi defenses of the three men before us.
Raven isn't even in attack mode, or releasing an exceptional amount of her aura, but I can tell if she's in such close proximity for many seconds longer they will be in fatal danger.
I reflexively grab her wrist and mimic the purple barrier-sharing technique I used on the Lich King when I wanted to mask his identity.
The intensity in the room immediately stops heightening once every spare thread is pushed back into her body by the purple barrier, yet there is already a large amount still contaminating the air.
It's making the orange cores lightheaded, and a look of worry mixed with interest comes across the yellow-cored old man's face as I perform my next task.
Activating the innate properties of my true core's absorption technique, and the new ability I managed to steal from the man of threads in the dark forest, tendrils of pure divine energy wrapped in dense mana come out from my body and fill the room to soak up all of the excess threads in a matter of seconds.
The room falls silent once the crisis is averted, and the old man smiles as he replies.
"Incredible... even now, touching the Type-A Originator stone, you're able to use mana with such ease."
His wandering eyes come back to Raven, then he speaks again.
"And Raven—it was merely an assumption that you would arrive. You have nothing to fear, I could not sense your presence."
She takes a deep breath, and I feel her heartbeat slow back down as she gets out of an attack stance and stands up straight.
"Well... then, good. I guess there wouldn't be a threat from you anyway. Our pact still stands... However, why have you returned? To take your chance at the throne too? Or have the big three sent you here to spy on us...? Or—"
He cuts her off with a chuckle.
"I'm not even connected to the system, it would be impossible for me to walk through the doors. My dreams of claiming the throne were lost long ago, and my disdain for the big three has not wavered. I'm not your enemy or competition, just a helping hand to offer information to an ally in the next great war that is soon to begin."
I take a step forward, now with all of the pieces of this puzzle starting to come together in my head.
"What information is so important that you've shown yourself now, after many decades of hiding? -And what is it that you want in return?"
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